Izzy
by I-Mushi
Summary: When the werewolves go public Jesse has a friend in her corner.


**Writer's Note:** I'm on a roll! Izzy was only mentioned briefly as Jesse's friend in the beginning of _Fire Touched._ (Whose first chapter I wish I could pin on my wall. Mercy vs. the Multi-Level Marketer.) She isn't mentioned again as far as I know, but I wanted to peek into Jesse's life, especially when the revelation about werewolves and her dad became public. I know it didn't go like this and she probably didn't have many friends sticking up for her, but in my head Izzy was there. Also, Adam would totally be that hot dad teenagers have passing thoughts about because come on, we've all been 16 and crazy.

 **Izzy**

Izzy swallowed for the third time as she drove down the dead-end street to Jesse's house. She and Jesse had been friends since third grade, and she was a wholehearted supporter of almost anything Jesse did. (Dyeing her hair with Kool-Aid was the only time Izzy had truly regretted that loyalty. It stained. Badly.) She loved Jesse and they were best friends, but Jesse's dad would always be intimidating to her.

He was, unfortunately for Izzy's hormones, attractive, all while somehow looking young despite being at least thirty-five. Christy, was starting to show her age, though woe be on anyone who mentioned it. They'd been divorced for a while now, and Jesse's dad worked a lot, so Izzy didn't see either of them much, but whenever she had he'd been hard to look in the eye. Her grandmother had always stressed being polite, shaking hands, and making eye contact, but Izzy had never managed the last one. She'd only seen him truly mad once and that had been enough to scare her badly.

She'd once even tried to tactfully bring up how… well, she couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something about him. But despite being best friends forever, Jesse didn't talk about her dad or his colleagues and friends much, though Izzy had seen them around the house before. She wondered if that impromptu party, work event, or _something_ she'd seen had been why Jesse came to her place now and she didn't go over anymore.

This lab project had to be done though, and since Jesse was grounded for getting that temporary tattoo at a party she wasn't supposed to be at (and making her dad believe the tattoo was real for a couple of minutes), Izzy had to go to her. She just hoped her dad didn't open the door; Izzy had kind of been dating a guy named Dave in school, but she was old enough to know the difference between boys and men.

She pulled up and grabbed her backpack as she got out of the car, jogging up the front steps before she lost her cool. Just because Mr. Hauptman _looked_ like he could read her mind and was uncomfortably good looking sometimes, didn't mean he actually _could_ or could tell she noticed.

The door opened before Izzy could hit the bell, but it wasn't Mr. Hauptman at the door. "Oh, uh, hi Mercy," Izzy greeted with an awkward smile. She was never quite sure how to act around Mercy, who Jesse loved like a big sister and who Jesse's dad was obviously smitten with. She was a family friend who Izzy had only met tangentially.

"Hi Izzy. Jesse's in her room with the music turned up. Can she change that scream-o metal for something a little more… classic rock?"

"She'll know you wanted me to ask that," Izzy pointed out.

Mercy shrugged with a smile. "Had to try."

Izzy headed up the stairs, spotting Mr. Hauptman as she passed Mercy. He smiled at her and she waved before focusing slightly harder on the stairs than necessary.

Jesse was flopped back on her bed when Izzy opened the door, the music indeed very loud. "I'm not turning it off," she said before Izzy could get a word in.

"I like the third track better, but the whole album is good." Izzy dumped her bag and crawled on the bed to lay down beside her best friend. "Any chance your mom could come back and plant a different bush under your window so you could jail break?" Being grounded sucked. Outside of school she hadn't seen Jesse in almost a week.

Jesse snorted and blew her stylish purple bangs off her forehead. "Probably wouldn't work anyway."

"Why not? We got out of my house over the garage roof."

Jesse rolled over until her face was planted in the pillow and muttered something, but Izzy couldn't make it out.

"What?"

"Not important. Let's get this lab done so I can get Mr. Bailey off my back."

Izzy frowned, sensing one of those secrets Jesse kept from her. "Is something going on Jesse? Is your dad and Mercy—"

"No, though she's been around more often recently, and he's better when she is. It's nothing, really." The way that Jesse turned away quickly to dig out her homework felt like a betrayal.

"You can tell me anything Jess, you know that. I don't keep stuff from you."

Jesse seemed to consider that, then scooted closer on the floor until she was at Izzy's feet, beckoning her down. Izzy sat cross-legged on the floor too and watched confused as Jesse pulled the heavy comforter off her bed and over them.

When their knees were touching and their breath was starting to heat up the impromptu tent, Jesse leaned her forehead forward until it was on Izzy's shoulder. "I wish I could tell you," she whispered, barely audible above the stereo blaring and the muffling of Izzy's shirt. "But I can't. Just… let's always be friends, okay? No matter what?"

Izzy put her arms around Jesse without thinking twice. "Of course, you couldn't keep me away. Who'd dye your hair after all?" Izzy's mother was a hairdresser who'd lent her talents and time to showing Izzy how to properly dye Jesse's hair and how to undo the horror that was Kool-Aid coloring. Jesse had been most impressed at how calm Izzy's mom had been when she'd walked into what looked like a murder scene in the bathroom.

"Ha," Jesse said without humor.

"Is it your dad? Or your mom?" Izzy considered how awful Jesse's mom was sometimes, and then how intimidating Mr. Hauptman could be. He worked in security, had Jesse seen something? "Witness protection program?" she joked.

 _That_ made Jesse smile and finally pull back from her shoulder. Her face was red, though Izzy couldn't be sure that wasn't the stifling warmth under the blanket or how hard she'd been pressing on her shoulder. "My dad's not a serial killer and mom only ditched me for Reno once."

"And for Las Vegas," Izzy added. Jesse had spent a spring break at her house instead of going to her mom's. Mr. Hauptman had only found out after day three when Christy finally called to ask when Jesse was getting on the plane. Izzy had been terrified when she'd opened the door to that ferocious glower, but when Mr. Hauptman had seen Jesse the flash of relief had been real. That had been the only time Izzy had seen him mad, and if she didn't know how much he loved Jesse she'd have been worried for her.

"Why can't you tell me?" Izzy asked, but Jesse shushed her.

"Not so loud. I—" She looked pained, but was getting more composed. "It's better if you don't know. Please trust me on that."

Izzy gave her a long look before grudgingly acquiescing. She knew Jesse and trusted her absolutely, even if she disagreed with her decision. It didn't mean she wasn't going to keep a sharper eye out. "Okay, fine," she whispered back.

"Great! Lab time," Jesse chirped with unnecessary force and threw off the blanket. Izzy blinked sharply in the light of the window, their moment of solidarity and secrecy gone in a flash.

* * *

Werewolves. Izzy sat dumbfounded in front of the small TV in the kitchen watching the morning news with her mom. Werewolves were real. Just like the fae.

She thought of all the movies about werewolves she'd seen and how dumb the Hollywood ones probably were in comparison to the real thing, and then to how uproariously Jesse had laughed when they watched Teen Wolf together—

"Do you think they go to dog groomers?" her mom asked.

"Yeah, sure," Izzy mumbled, standing up and swaying for a second under the epiphany she'd just had.

Normally Izzy didn't bother with the newspaper, but when she spotted the front-page article in her dad's hands she sat back down. "What's it say?"

"There's a list of known werewolves. Mostly in the military apparently. Probably a violent lot." Izzy winced. Hauptman Security wasn't quite like her father's accounting work.

"Anyone we've heard of?" her mom asked.

Her dad scanned down the list and Izzy held her breath. Surely she was wrong. They couldn't have outed every werewolf in the country, so maybe she was wrong or he wouldn't be on the list.

"Izzy," he dad said slowly, and her stomach felt like it dropped to the floor, "your friend Jesse. Her last name is Hauptman, right?"

Her stomach started sinking into the black hole beneath the floor. "Yeah."

"Related to Adam Hauptman?"

Izzy nodded, and her head felt like it was buzzing. Her dad opened his mouth to say something more when her mother cut him off. "That poor girl, living with werewolves. She's got good manners, though no wonder her father looks so young. Goodness, I wonder if the press will be at school."

The press… God Jesse probably wouldn't even go to school if they were there. Would they pull her out? Was her dad the only werewolf in town or were there more? Was Jesse one too?

"You've been over to her house before, haven't you?" Her dad interrupted, sounding alarmed. "Izzy, did you notice anything? Has Mr. Hauptman ever done or said anything to you? I can't believe such a dangerous creature was here under our noses!"

His panic made her angry, as much as her mother's telling silence when she looked at her. "Yeah, dad," she snapped. "He has said something to me. 'Hi Izzy, how are you?' and 'Jesse's upstairs right now'. He's a dad, _dad_."

Her father jutted his chin out like he did when he argued with her grandmother. It wasn't a flattering look and warned of his stubbornness. "Don't take that tone with me. Wolves are vicious animals, and we don't know anything about these _werewolves_ and what their capable of. I don't want you around Adam Hauptman until the we know more."

"I'm not going to stop talking to her or hanging out with her, dad!" Izzy stood up quickly, knocking back her chair. She'd never feared for her safety around Jesse or her dad, and her father sounded like those pundits on TV talking about the fae.

"Izzy, honey, we just want to know if she, you know… 'inherited' it, if you know what I mean." Izzy's mom had gone for the placating tone, forgetting that nothing made Izzy angrier. She wasn't a child who needed the world to be explained to her, and she _knew_ in that moment that Jesse wasn't a werewolf.

"Jesse's not a werewolf, she's my best friend. That's what matters to me." She grabbed her backpack and left for school, fuming and righteously indignant in turn.

Izzy had arrived earlier than usual, but her ears were already ringing with comments from the parking lot. Jesse wasn't going to stick out just for her purple hair anymore from the sounds of it; other students had put two and two together. Izzy ignored Dave asking if she'd known or ever seen Mr. Hauptman turn into a beast and stomped through the crowd to the front of the school.

She waited outside for Jesse to pull up, brushing off questions from hanger-ons. She recognized the SUV when it parked in front of the school but not the man driving it. Jesse took an extra minute to open the door, and Izzy was there the second she did, trying to act like normal even as the whispers around them surged.

"Hey Jess, did you bring my scarf? I texted you last night that I forgot it."

Jesse looked so relieved to see her that her white knuckles loosened just a little around the strap of her bag. "Yeah, I've got it."

The guy in the driver's seat tipped an imaginary hat at Izzy, eyed the crowd behind her, and drove off.

There was a three-foot buffer around Jesse and Izzy as they headed inside the school. People talked behind their hands and a few brave ones approached to ask questions, but Jesse refused to say anything more than they knew. "He's my dad, that's it. I'm not a werewolf too," she repeated all day. By the end of the day curiosity had started to wane, perhaps because Jesse had yet to turn into a wolf or because she refused to say anything more.

Her shoulders were slumping though, and she looked tired when Izzy caught up to her. They didn't have the last three classes of the day together, otherwise Izzy would have tried to be a buffer for her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Jack won't talk to me at all and Ms. White passed over me three times to answer questions. I feel like they're scared of me." Izzy leaned on the locker but turned in time to spot heads looking at Jesse then jerking away.

"Looks like your dad is outside waiting for you."

"Great, just what I need." She exhaled heavily. "I know it's not his fault, and it sucks that everyone knows what he is now, but he doesn't have to deal with school." She shot a nasty look at some of the girls down the hall who were obviously gossiping about her. Jesse had never gotten along with that group to begin with, but now they were outright ostracizing her.

Jesse saw their looks and his lips tightened as she packed her bag. "Guess I won't get invited to another school party."

"Well if I am we'll go together," Izzy promised. "And if I don't then we'll just party by ourselves. Maybe we should try rainbow-dyeing our hair for LGBT Awareness Month. You said the purple just made your dad roll his eyes."

Jesse looked up at her and finally smiled, though it was a bit more wobbly than her usual ones.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. No promises my parents will like it, but we've already proven it's easy to sneak out from my place." Izzy grinned down at her best friend.

"And now you know why I can't do the same. Dad can hear a pin drop from across the street." Jesse looked rueful for a moment. "I better go before he draws a bigger crowd."

There was already a large crowd loitering around watching him, but they didn't get much of an event. Mr. Hauptman smiled at Jesse, opened her door for her, and then hopped in his side before driving off. Not a snarl, growl, or tuft of fur in sight.


End file.
